


Late Expectations

by thirstysixdegrees (Phoeliac)



Series: You Never Go Full Sugar Daddy [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alpha Victor Nikiforov, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Age Yuuri, Implied/Referenced Sex, M/M, Mpreg, Older Victor, Omega Katsuki Yuuri
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2019-02-04 17:53:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12776301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoeliac/pseuds/thirstysixdegrees
Summary: [YOI Secret Santa Exchange gift for Alykapedia.]“Did you ever think about children?”He considers the tabloids, the gossip rags going, for want of a better word, baby-crazy the minute he turned twenty-five. Every unmated omega he so much as breathed at being turned into articles about a non-existent romance and hypothetical children. Learning not to want because the public like a good story, and a good hero doesn’t want, he gives and he suffers, stoically -“Victor?” Yuuri’s voice, gentle like a leash, leads him back out of the torrent of possibility he’s tumbled into.





	Late Expectations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alykapedia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alykapedia/gifts).



> Inspiration for this basically ended up being _"you know that au? do an au within that au. you know you want to."_
> 
> Hopefully this fulfils the gift requirements, and Happy Holidays! :)

 

\- - -  - - -  - - -

  
Victor turns forty in Hasetsu. Buried in bedsheets, side-by-side with Yuuri, the pair of them curled towards one another like parentheses.

The bed is strewn with pillows and clothing and Victor is drunk on bone-deep happiness, cooing internally at the slow migration of Yuuri’s things to his room. At the nest being stealthily built in Victor’s space. The steady, progressive intermingling of them. He’d never understood the gushing praise from other alphas about sharing an omega’s nest - hadn’t known how heady it would feel to be part of Yuuri’s safe space, how it would make him preen to be included in its formation.

They stay awake in their soft cocoon to watch the clock tick over and Christmas roll in. Mostly they just touch, kiss the closest parts of them within reach, share soft secrets in the spaces between.

“I wasn’t lonely until I met you,” Victor presses into Yuuri’s wrist, and Yuuri mouths “I don’t know how to want unless it’s you” into the hollow of Victor’s throat.

There’s no ominous thunderclap to herald the passing of another year, no oppressive fog that rolls in to hang over him. The alarm clock just blinks to 00:00 and Victor pulls Yuuri, sleepy and pliant, under the sheets with him. Wraps him in blankets, hides him from the outside world, and makes him the centre of his own.

Victor turns Yuuri’s hand this way and that in order to press kisses to his finger tips.

Their scents bleed together, creating something smokey and painfully like _home_.

Victor doesn’t care about his age here. Can forget entirely about the imminent parade of congratulatory reminders that he’s _that_ much closer to being middle-aged. The stream of social media messages trying to be sweet, that mostly just remind him that Yuuri could have any alpha he wanted. Any young, virile thing, and for some reason he wants _him_.

Yuuri shoves his cold feet between Victor’s shins, and Victor lets out a surprised hiss.

“What did you think your life would be like?” Yuuri whispers, looking up at Victor from where he’s tucked into his chest.

And Victor actually has to pause and think about it for a moment. He’s got a lifetime of experience in telling journalists nothing while letting them think they’ve plumbed the depths of his soul - part necessity as a national treasure, part painful attempt at self-preservation. It’s hard to dwell on things you don’t let yourself speak about, when you practice them into careful non-existence. Things like a life, and love, and a family of one’s own.

Looking at Yuuri’s fingers, at the ring he placed there, Victor frowns. Perfect visions of a perfect future play out like a crackly VHS in his mind - monuments to something he never thought he’d have.

“I thought...I’d be happy,” he finally says, trying the words out in his mouth.

Yuuri curls his free hand up, around Victor’s cheek. Victor smiles down at him, hopes he can feel the affection he wants to surround him with, drown him in. The gratefulness that floods him, each day.

“I thought I’d meet someone. Attractive. Kind. Good with dogs,” he brushes his lips across Yuuri’s ear, “and a great ass.”

Yuuri beams, even as he petulantly mutters _“you’re_ an ass”, and turns his face into Victor’s neck, nosing and scenting him as though it’s the most natural thing in the world. Victor lets him without hesitation - unthinkable not to let Yuuri leave a mark. _His_ mark.

Something inside Victor has loosened. A cascade that fills the crack that feelings used to fall into; he can gain firm footing now, standing with Yuuri atop the detritus. So he breathes in and digs deep.

“I thought I might be married,” he admits. Feels the weight of the ring on his fingers like a love bite.

Yuuri pulls back and peers up at him with eyes like pits. His brow is creased, but he seems more pensive than perturbed.

“Do you…” he pauses, curiosity and anxiety warring across his face.

Victor can’t help but press close, kiss the concern off of his lips. He shapes the words _no, no, how could I regret anything that led me here, to you_ around the little sigh Yuuri makes, the curl of tongue and edge of teeth. Victor knows Yuuri hears, understands, by the way Yuuri nips his lip, purrs contentedly. And _oh_ , Victor is _thrilled_ that he alone gets to hear that sound. He rolls them over so Yuuri’s underneath, rocks against him and earns an interested little hum in reply.

Victor only stops kissing Yuuri to pepper softer, biting marks across his jaw, down his neck. Yuuri twists to gives him better access, sighing and threading his right hand through Victor’s hair, an anchor and a lifeline at once.

 _I thought of you,_ Victor thinks as he draws a hot line down Yuuri’s clavicle, imagines a bright brand following in his wake. _Thought of someone to stand beside, who shone so bright it was like walking next to the sun._

He pauses over Yuuri’s belly, before dipping his tongue to the divot of his hip. Beneath his ministrations, Yuuri shifts impatiently. Victor smirks and presses him down, takes the time to bite down in imitation of a claim. Yuuri gasps, then, to Victor’s utter delight, _giggles_.

It’s a beautiful sound. Victor thinks, for a moment, that he’s ascended and gone to heaven. When he’s back in his own body, he clambers back up Yuuri to press their smiles together - to share in his breathless laughter.

Somehow he finds enough air to breathe out “I think I dreamed you.”

Yuuri stills and stares up at him. Time stretches thick and slow, before he looks shyly away, then back, and speaks.

“Did you ever-”

He cuts himself off, worries his lip, and Victor draws his thumb across it. Waits for him to continue.

Yuuri’s voice drops to a low, comforting roll of syllables. Victor would strain to hear if he wasn’t so dedicated to studying all of Yuuri at any given moment.

“Did you ever think about children?”

It’s remarkable, how quickly sound dies and turns to white noise.

Victor stiffens, fingers curl and uncurl as he considers the question. In that perfect future, the VHS tape in his mind, there was someone and something so great, taking up so much of his heart that he didn’t need to think about the vacuum between his ribs. Sometimes there was a tiny human against his chest, clinging and chubby, looking up at him with wide, trusting eyes.

He considers the tabloids going, for want of a better word, _baby-crazy_ the minute he turned twenty-five. Every unmated omega he so much as breathed at being turned into articles about a non-existent romance and hypothetical children. Learning not to want because the public like a good story, and a good hero doesn’t _want,_ he gives and he suffers, stoically -

“Victor?” Yuuri’s voice, gentle like a leash, leads him back out of the torrent of _possibility_ he’s tumbled into.

Victor blinks. Runs one weak hand down his face, then frames Yuuri’s with it. Yuuri is hot under his touch. Purring weaker now, clearly struggling with something unsaid.

“Sorry. I just thought-” Yuuri babbles, reaches up to cover Victor’s hand with his own, “I’m getting ahead of myself.”

“Yuuri,” is all Victor can say, gaping and falling all over again. He can parse about a hundred different implications from that statement, all of which leave him wanting to wrap Yuuri in gold and silk and safety. To hold him close and never let him go, keep him warm and never wanting for anything.

(There’s a thought coalescing now. It has Yuuri’s eyes and Victor’s smile.)

“If you wanted...we could?” Yuuri says firmly now, looking back at Victor, confidence newly steeled.

(Not new, just repolished, revisited. Yuuri’s the strongest person Victor knows, even if sometimes Yuuri forgets that fact.)

After a second he jolts and blurts, “Not right now! I mean-”

His hands slide down to lace around Victor’s neck and he breathes out, a warm puff against Victor’s brow.

“When I retire. It’d be nice to...once I’ve retired. If you want it.”

He hears the unspoken _because I do_ and slumps against Yuuri’s chest. Groans and tightens his hold on him. Yuuri’s heart is thudding under Victor’s head, rabbitlike, persistent.

 _“Yes_.” Victor breathes.

“Yes?”

Yuuri sounds disbelieving. _He sounds like a dream_. Victor rubs his cheek against his chest, scents the air and rumbles like an engine. He realises, after a moment, that half the vibration he feels is his own body shaking, and has to pull himself up, over Yuuri again.

Yuuri, who’s looking up at him with such love, bleeding out of his open expression. The bedsheets fall away when Victor sits up, the room cold outside of their hideaway. He just wants to remember this. How Yuuri looks, glowing in the moonlight and spread so sweetly beneath him. The bracing sea-salt scent of him rising up, curling like a fog around them. He blurs at the edges. Victor is surprised to blink and feel a tear slide down his cheek.

Yuuri surges upwards and thumbs the wet line across Victor’s face, makes unhappy little sounds until Victor smiles brightly, kisses him wet and deep. He’s hiccuping when they part, some strange delight bubbling in him where before it roiled then bled away; he sinks back down to the mattress, pulling Yuuri with him and nuzzling his scent gland, thrilling at the way Yuuri lets him. Eagerly goes where Victor asks. Victor gathers him close and shuts his eyes tight.

When he sleeps he dreams of Yuuri - gorgeous, resplendent, refusing to budge an inch. A squirming bundle tucked between them, and Victor drowns in their scents, irrevocably entwined.

 

\- - -  - - -  - - -

  
They start trying three weeks short of Yuuri’s official retirement date in July.

Well.

Trying but not trying, if they’re honest. Too enthusiastic about the idea to hold back, too distracted by the ridiculous torrent of obligation and responsibility The Retirement Of Katsuki Yuuri brings to actually keep track of things like heats, or ruts, or the kinds of deeply involved wall charts that make Yuuri feel like he’s going cross-eyed.

(“We’re not... _trying_ trying,” he tries to explain to Phichit, “we’re just sort of. Seeing what happens.”

Phichit gives him a look almost _deadly_ in derision and says “so, baby clothes for Christmas, then?”)

Specifically, they start in a hotel room, where Yuuri’s sprawled across violently patterned sheets, purring contentedly in a pre-heat daze. Watching Victor putter around packing their bags.

He smiles down at Yuuri every time he passes him, damp hair curling behind his ears as it dries. He’s wearing (for once in his life) pyjama bottoms, covered in tiny, tessellated poodles. Some of the poodles have on little sunglasses.

He’s the most gorgeous man Yuuri’s ever seen.

Yuuri thinks with startling clarity, _I want a baby. With you. Now._

Victor’s folding one of Yuuri’s shirts into a neat triangle, long fingers sweeping precise lines across the material, and Yuuri goes from half-asleep to Fully Awake in about two seconds. He watches those fingers work their magic, squirms a little at the prickling heat spreading under his skin.

Victor shoots him a curious look, raises his eyebrows at the smile that spreads, syrup-like, across Yuuri’s mouth.

Yuuri arches prettily and licks his lip, fixes victor with a dark stare. Slides a hand over his chest, down, _down_ -

Victor drops the shirt with a soft thump and his eyes go wide.

“Oh,” he says.

 _Oh?_ Yuuri thinks.

He sighs, wistfully, and gives Victor his best, sad look. The one Phichit calls the _'I'm beautiful and I'm sad, please do things'_ face.

(Yuuri'd doubted Phichit's descriptions of its power. Then, at the business end of a diet plan, he'd watched in careful silence as Victor bought a froofy cupcake thing. Victor'd taken one look at Yuuri's face and immediately handed it to him, before staring between his hand and Yuuri's face with a bewildered expression.)

Victor's gaze goes dark. He shoves their bags aside and climbs onto the bed, crawls across to Yuuri, who reaches out to yank him closer. Victor somehow manages to stumble gracefully, grimaces a little and lets out an “oof”, before perching with his elbows either side of Yuuri’s head.

Yuuri rolls his hips up, makes sure Victor feels every inch of him.

 _“Oh_ ,” Victor says, before biting  into his mouth.

Yuuri goes molten as he kisses back. Liquid and scalding with the first clumsy click of teeth, then the sequel of practiced teasing, a dance in two parts.

Victor leads, then Yuuri; the push and pull tumbling his heart, making him shake as he tries to get closer. Get more. The pressure of Victor’s weight against him isn’t nearly enough. Yuuri hooks one leg round Victor’s hip, half-grinding his erection against Victor’s thigh. They part with a slick sound, Victor pink-faced and lips glistening. He rocks back when Yuuri pushes against him; not quite there, not as quick as Yuuri. Never has been, even before he turned forty, but very _definitely_ on the way.

Yuuri smirks, knows that Victor enjoys being played like this - that it’s Yuuri and Yuuri alone who’s playing him. Yuuri can draw a symphony out of his limbs, turn his flitting arousal into a rhapsody.

“I want to make a baby,” he blurts out, breathlessly.

Victor stills on top of him. Or at least, most of him does. Yuuri is pressed close enough that he can feel the interested twitch.

Then he drops from his elbows to push Yuuri back against the mattress with puppyish enthusiasm. Crooning “Yuuri, _Yuuri_ , **_Yuuri_ ** ”, as he sinks them like stones to the pillows. The bed springs creak. The headboard thuds once against the wall and Yuuri can’t help but laugh, wrap his arms round Victor’s shoulders. He doesn’t even try to resist the urge to nuzzle into his neck, to drink in his scent - singed where it’s usually crisp, like a bonfire burning in autumn air.

It has him aching throughout the onslaught of messy kisses Victor scalds across his collarbone.

“I thought we were waiting until you retire,” Victor gasps between them.

Yuuri, curling like a cat, beams up at him and slides one hand down to grab at Victor’s ass. It earns him a groan, and Victor’s hands slip under Yuuri’s shirt, skirt up his ribs with those wonderful, _wonderful_ fingers.

“That doesn’t mean we can’t start trying,” he says. Then he wraps his other leg around Victor’s waist and _grinds_.

Victor makes a weak whimper of a sound, then draws his nails down Yuuri’s sides.

“You can’t wait another month?”

Yuuri whines, digs his fingers into flesh as he rocks. Pleasant sparks coil through him with the friction of Victor against him, the hot, firmness of his cock against Yuuri’s.

The thought of waiting is _agonising_ , now that the end’s so close. Now he’s stuck on the idea of stealing Victor away from the world one final time. Of having and keeping a part of him no one else can hope to have. He wants everything Victor has to give. Wants to _give_ Victor everything in turn.

Yuuri pulls back, gives Victor a burning look, and watches the way his pale eyes follow Yuuri's tongue when he licks his lips.

Victor sounds a little lost when he speaks, voice caught on a rough edge that sounds an awful lot like _I am the luckiest man alive_.

“You’re still skating, what sort of risks would that have on th-”

“You seem awfully sure you can do the job in a month,” Yuuri interrupts, deliberately shifts so his shirt rucks up when he rubs against Victor and breathes into his ear.

“By all means, if you think you’ll manage to put a baby in me that fast…”

He delights at the growl that bubbles out of Victor, and then he’s pulled up, his shirt tugged off.

Victor pulls him back down into a hot kiss, sweeps possessive hands up to circle Yuuri’s nipples, thumb them in a shivery little spiral of sensation that makes Yuuri whimper.

His own hands delve under the waist of Victor’s pyjama pants to try and drag him impossibly closer, to almost climb inside him. They rock together in practiced motion, moving to the same rhythm, a dance only they know the steps to.

Victor pulls away from Yuuri’s mouth to bite his way across Yuuri’s chest, little licking pinpricks that make Yuuri squirm.

It’s purposeful. Different.

Victor works his way down Yuuri’s body, fixes him with intense eyes before he pulls at his shorts, and Yuuri wriggles to help Victor pull them off. It’s not as helpful as he intended, the both of them racing too fast to get to the same place, and he nearly kicks Victor in the face before they’re off - the air both relief and agony against him.

Between his legs, Victor looks ravenous. He slides his hands up, brushing his wrists to all the places Yuuri’s blushing, and trailing his scent across warm his skin.

Then he bends down and bites the inside of Yuuri’s thigh.

Yuuri yelps, grabs at Victor’s shoulders and tries not to swear when he feels himself drip, pulse at the sting. He throws his head back, bares his throat without thinking.

Victor clambers back to Yuuri’s mouth, then pauses above him. Scrutinises while Yuuri tries to press up against him.

Up close the lines of Victor’s crow’s feet are beautiful, lightning forks across his skin, and it’s Yuuri who feels electric. He’s a storm cloud underneath him. Wants to earth himself in the pale fan of Victor’s eyelashes against his cheek. He tilts his head and Victor smiles, says nothing. Just rests on one elbow then spreads his free hand across Yuuri’s heart. Huffs a laugh when Yuuri tries to pulls his pyjama bottoms down.

It’s not the best position to do so, and Yuuri whines and shoves at Victor while he does nothing to aid Yuuri’s attempts to undress him. Alone, he manages to get the pyjamas halfway down Victor’s thighs and takes a mouth-watering moment to personally thank whatever deities might exist for Victor’s (frequently petulant) refusal to wear underwear.

 _“Victor_ _,"_ he groans, not at all demanding.

Victor grins wolfishly, then sits up to undress properly, turns to the side of the bed to deposit his clothes on the floor.

Yuuri swallows as he watches his back muscles flex. Creeps a hand to press at the bottom of his spine and Victor arches unashamedly, shoots Yuuri a ridiculous pouting look. Yuuri’s heart thuds, because _this is his._ This is the Victor no one else gets to see.

The same one who twists, pleasingly, then crawls over to lie back down beside him. Who pulls Yuuri close with possessive arms around his waist and kisses the air out of him; Yuuri goes willingly, shivers and throbs and presses all his need into Victor’s lips.

“What do you want, Yuuri?” Victor murmurs when he pulls back enough to speak, slides his knee between Yuuri’s thighs. An almost painful weight, but Yuuri can’t get enough.

Yuuri wants to curl into a ball - wants to spread himself open - wants so many things all at once.

He gives a showy little moan, rolls in a long, slow, slide against Victor’s thigh and watches his pupils dilate; how his eyes turn stormy with desire. There’s only one word he can remember, in the jumble of ‘want’ and ‘need’ and ‘feel’ - he groans into Victor’s mouth and tugs on his bottom lip in pale imitation of a kiss.

“ _Please._ ” He grinds out.

And Victor, as ever, is eager to.

 

 - - -   - - -   - - -

 

Later, _after_ , they sag together like pages unglued. Yuuri purring loud and unselfconsciously, Victor groaning into his neck and doing his best impression of a paperweight.

“You’ve killed me,” he manages to say, from where his mouth is pressed to Yuuri’s skin.

Yuuri hums noncommittally, holds him against his chest and lets the thick tendrils of their scents blanket him into a doze. As he drifts he feels the whisper of “ _what did I do to deserve you?_ ” against his collarbone, and a soft, ponderous touch across his belly before he sleeps.

He dreams of a supernova swelling, bursting before him. Something taking root in the overgrowth of his mind. When he wakes they’ve shifted, and Victor is snoring beside him. His hands fallen to the mattress, apostrophes between their bodies.

Yuuri curls his fingers round Victor’s.

For one perfect moment, he hopes.

 

\- - -  - - -  - - -

Two things happen once Yuuri officially retires.

First, Victor decides they need a second honeymoon.

(“It’s a crime I’ve never taken you to Paris,” he says, unprompted. In same airy way he says “of course I don’t hate that tie. Incidentally, where are the scissors?”)

Second, Yuuri gets a cold. A horrid, weighty thing that sits on his chest and roils in his gut and has him becoming acquainted with fancy, French plumbing rather more intimately than he thought possible.

By day three of their Big (Non-Business) Trip To Gay Paree, Victor doesn’t even seem surprised to find Yuuri grumpily curled on the tiled floor of their suite bathroom, staring at the toilet bowl and holding his stomach. Quietly appreciating the underfloor heating Victor made such a big deal about when booking hotels.

“Oh, _lyubov_ ,” Victor rasps, hoarse with sleep, before joining him on the floor and pulling Yuuri half into his lap.

Yuuri shuts his eyes as fingers thread through his hair, stroke his fringe back from his brow.

“What are you doing down there?”

“I live here now,” Yuuri croaks, “this is my new home.”

He waves one hand vaguely around, to show Victor the bounds of his new kingdom.

Victor replies with a little “oh”, and slides his own hand over Yuuri’s stomach, strokes in a steady circle. It’s nice. Yuuri twines their fingers together and makes a happy noise in the back of his throat.

Eventually he manages to sit upright, back pressed to Victor’s bare chest, head back against his shoulder, and he sighs, miserably. Gets a cool kiss to his temple for his troubles. Victor scents him with soft touches, little kisses along his hairline that crackle and sputter pleasantly under Yuuri’s skin.

The winter-sharp smell of Victor is calming. Seems to soothe his stomach, set the buzzing suspicion in the back of his mind at ease. Yuuri tilts his head to bare his neck; a silent demand that Victor follows with his lips to the base of the bondmark. Teases with nibbling, a promise of renewal, of fresh bruises in the shape of his heart.

“I’ll get you some water,” he says, then gently leans Yuuri against the counter before he leaves to do just that.

(Something inside Yuuri bubbles up, simmers at Victor providing for him, unasked. He has just enough energy to squash it down, beat it back, because, seriously? _It’s just water._ )

When Victor returns he’s put on a shirt, and Yuuri doesn’t have time to be disappointed before his gut twists. He heaves and retches into the toilet bowl, Victor’s hand a comforting weight between his shoulder blades. Yuuri thinks he could hate France, if he didn’t have a sleep-warm alpha clicking his tongue and rubbing a strong hand up and down his spine.

 _Ah yes_ , says the little voice in his head that likes to herald his more humiliating anxiety attacks, _how romantic._

He squeezes his eyes shut, and the voice out. Breathes deep and even, to the drag of Victor’s fingers. Eventually his stomach seems to settle again, though now it aches with ill-advised hunger. He coughs, spits, and turns to rest his cheek against the cool porcelain, where he can watch Victor’s concerned face from the corner of his eye.

“It’s not so bad,” he says, voice ragged now, “it’s bigger than our dorm room in detroit.”

Victor’s face twitches, always poor at hiding amusement at even the bleaker of Yuuri’s jokes. He huffs, gets Yuuri sitting again, and presses the glass of water he acquired to his lips.

Yuuri feel like he’s been dying of thirst, and it’s arduous to stop himself from draining the glass in one swig; it’s icy, clean - ambrosia, to his weak, shaky misery.

“You’re not moving into the bathroom, Yuuri.”

“You can come visit me,” Yuuri promises between sips.

There’s a soft laugh, then Victor’s pulling a towel from god knows where. It’s damp and cool and _oh,_ _when did he run it under the tap?_

Yuuri feels foggy at the edges, and wants to go back to sleep. Wants to curl up beneath sheets that smell of them. Wants to heap their clothes on the soft mattress and burrow underneath, never to come out again - preferably with Victor’s warmth beside him. Skin to skin, heartbeat to heartbeat.

He starts at the cold press of the towel to his face, eyes flying open to find Victor peering at him as he mops and soothes. His face is creased in tender amusement and Yuuri, despite the grogginess, wants to burst with the love he feels.

“I refuse to live in a bathroom. Where would Makka sleep?” Victor asks.

Which is sensible. An excellent point. Where _would_ Makkachin sleep? He ponders this so as not to get lost in the way that Victor so easily turns ‘I’ into ‘We’.

He’s also too tired, too wretched to explain that, clearly, she’d get the bedroom in their absence.

Instead, Yuuri lets Victor press the cold towel to his face. It makes him feel a little less like his head’s been in a vice. He can feel Victor’s gaze on him, preens a little under the attention, cold be damned. Reaches up and curves his hand around Victor’s wrist, swipes his thumb across his pulsepoint.

He can feel Victor lean closer. The smell of him getting stronger; Yuuri wants to bow his head, wants to bury himself in Victor’s chest. Wants to fall asleep knowing Victor’s there, making sure he’s safe and well and-

 _“Yuuri_.”

Victor’s voice is low, soft. It still cuts through the fluff, the blurriness cushioning Yuuri’s thoughts.

He opens his eyes, finds Victor smiling down at him and weakly smiles back.

“Let’s get back to bed,” Victor says, with a wink, almost conspiratorial.

Almost as if their plans for Paris weren’t ruined by Yuuri’s own body’s betrayal. As if him and Yuuri are the worst kept secret in existence. As if he knows exactly how awful Yuuri feels, and doesn’t give a damn how gross and sweaty he is.

Yuuri could climb him then and there.

He doesn’t, but it’s a near thing, and he grumbles a little pitifully when he has to stand up. Glues himself to Victor’s side as he steers him back to the bed. He slides back under the covers without much nudging, and begins to burrow back into sleep when the mattress dips beside him.

When he looks up, Victor’s sitting beside him, watching him thoughtfully. He runs his hand through Yuuri’s sweat-damp hair with piercing eyes and it’s like he’s cataloguing Yuuri in sickness. Recording the feverish tint to his cheeks, the way he molds himself into Victor’s touch.

Victor stays, and Yuuri curls around him, shivering at the scratch of his nails to Yuuri’s scalp.

In the last dwindling moment of lucidity before he’s lost to the comforting dark, Yuuri’s heart and stomach lurch as one. An alien rhythm presses at the suspicion that Victor’s presence had soothed, turning it rapid, but quiet. Hammering but tiny. A Hummingbird of a thing.

Hope turning over and over between his thumb and forefinger, spread over his already off-season thickened belly.

 _Oh,_ he thinks, before succumbing to sleep.

\- - -   - - -   - - -

 

Yuuri’s French isn’t spectacular. He suspects half of it isn’t even fit for public repetition, given that _one_ of his French teachers grabs his ass as a greeting, and the other is Victor.

He still manages to find what he needs with relative ease.

He’s feeling better, after a morning of exchanging pleasantries with the plumbing, and Victor took to him a small, family-run café for brunch. The air had been bittersweet, cloying, and Yuuri managed to keep down exactly one cup of tea while Victor made frankly obscene sounds over a plate of fruity pastries that had each and every diet plan Yuuri’s ever been on screaming out at once.

On the way back to their room, Victor spots a small general store and drags Yuuri in; he sets about picking up various bits and pieces while Yuuri wanders, deceptively meandering.

With one eye on Victor’s silver head over the stacks, Yuuri makes his way to what seems to be a pharmacy section, stopping when he finds a shelf of otherwise inconspicuous boxes. He consults google (which informs him the boxes are promising both discretion and accuracy), before grabbing two and stealthily heading to the cashier.

The cashier barely looks up when he hands her his purchase, distracted as she reaches for the tests and scans them. She pauses, gives him a curious little look from under her lashes.

Yuuri grabs a packet of gum from the stand next to them and drops it onto the counter.

She smiles as she rings him up.

The bag burns a hole in Yuuri’s jacket pocket as he makes his way over to Victor, who appears to have acquired a small pile of sundries in a basket, and now is rifling through a shiny magazine.

Yuuri curls his fingers round the bottom of Victor’s jacket and tucks his chin over his shoulder.

“Did you miss me?” Victor grins, looking sidelong at Yuuri.

Yuuri sighs, leans heavily against him. Victor turns to tuck him under his arm, presses a kiss to the top of his head and adds, “I missed you.”

“We’re in the same room,” Yuuri plucks the magazine from Victor’s hand, “but yes.”

He tries not to think about the boxes in his pocket, or the spectre of his anxiety looming over him.

“I always miss you,” he says, turning the page so they can read together.

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

 

“You smell good,” Victor says when he mouths across Yuuri’s jaw that evening. Hands sliding lower on Yuuri’s back, lingering at the edge of his shirt and pausing before dipping under.

They’re spread over the sturdy sofa, some French soap opera playing on the television as they paw, sleepily, at each other. Yuuri is preoccupied with the top two buttons of Victor’s shirt. Taunting him.

“ _Really_ good,” Victor adds, then grabs Yuuri’s ass for good measure.

Yuuri whines and doesn’t think about the boxes stuffed behind the counter in the bathroom. About the answer to the question he can’t quite bring himself to ask.

He gives up on the buttons and tears Victor’s shirt open, pushes him back down into the cushions and thinks, _what would I do without you._

  
(Yuuri swipes the shirt later, when Victor’s in the shower. Slides it under his pillow before he sleeps. It soothes some jagged edge inside his heart, the prickly need to gather, to surround himself with softness and smell.)

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

  
On Day Six, Yuuri manages to wake without needing to flee the embrace of either sleep or clingy husband.

The late August sun seeps into the room like honey, casting it in a soft, orange glow. He curls on his side and watches the light creep across the floor, watches it touch the edges of each thing before consuming it whole. His limbs are heavy with warmth rather than fatigue, and while his stomach still feels a little unsettled, it’s not the churning discomfort it has been.

He feels at peace. The gremlin that is his anxiety is quiet, or asleep maybe. Maybe he’s beaten it to wakefulness, for once. Yuuri is loathe to risk disturbing it by thinking too deeply, so he stretches and yawns, scratches his belly and drops a kiss onto Victor’s shoulder before staggering out of bed to use the bathroom.

He’s halfway across the room when he makes the decision. Catches his own eye in the mirror above the sink and sees _himself._ He pads over to the bathroom door to peer at Victor, who is now spooning one of Yuuri’s pillows and snoring like a tractor.

Yuuri clicks the door shut.

The boxes are crumpled, thanks to his hasty hiding spot for them, but otherwise undamaged. He sits on the warm floor and taps his fingers on his knees while he waits. Counts seams in the tiles to keep his anxiety at bay, absently rests on hand across his stomach, where he now seems to acquired butterflies.

A strange serenity sits over him, in the absence of fear. The wait is eternity, but at the same time, it doesn’t seem to draw out needlessly, stretching like elastic against the urgency of expectation.

He counts, he taps, and he turns hope over and over  - a worked smooth pebble down the slope of his mind.

Finally, he reaches out for the white stick (the gremlins stir, whisper, sulkily) and takes a breath before he looks at it.

“Okay,” he says. “That’s - Okay .”

He stares down at the test, at the powder blue lines. Then he closes his eyes, counts to three, and opens them to look again.

They’re still there. _He’s_ still there. Everything, in fact, remains the same.

Save one fairly important detail.

He lets out a laugh that’s just bordering on hysterical, then claps his hands over his face. Sinks into his own palm, shaking, simmering with something he thinks might be delight - might be terror. A healthy dose of the two.

Yuuri is still staring, dumbstruck, when the door clicks open, and Victor’s scent, tinged with concern rouses him from his stupor.

“Are you still sick?”

Victor squints at him, blearily. Pads across and kneels in front of him - he winces and Yuuri feels a twinge of guilt.

“You need to rest, Yuuri,” Victor says as he presses the back of one hand to Yuuri’s brow, frowns at little at him, “otherwise you won’t shake this cold.”

And what else can Yuuri do but bring his own hands up, present the test to him like a sacrifice. Victor blinks down at his hands, usually expressive face going from sleepy concern to utterly shuttered.

Seconds bleed by, not even a twitch crossing his face. Then he looks back up at Yuuri, eyes wide, saucer-like.

Yuuri’s voice sounds far away when he finally opens his mouth to speak.

“It’s not a cold.”

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

 

Victor is naked and crying on a bathroom floor.

It’s like his twenty-eighth birthday all over again, only this time it's neither alcohol nor puppy induced.

Victor can’t think of anything but Yuuri before him, Yuuri carrying part of him, of the perfect VHS tape dream of a future coming true.

The test in Yuuri’s hands is debris in the face of Yuuri’s shy confirmation, and Victor feels like he’s falling all over again. He sags into Yuuri’s arms and weeps, shakes with surprise, with joy. Presses wet kisses to every patch of bare skin he can reach, drags his hands across Yuuri in desperate, possessive trails, and when he’s strong enough to pull back, Yuuri is flushing vivid pink.

He smells _divine_.

Victor has exactly zero regrets.

“ _Yuuri,_ ” he breathes, and drags him into a biting kiss.

They tangle together, bubbly happiness rising between. They pull apart, stealing harsh little breaths from off one another’s lips, and Victor luxuriates in Yuuri’s twinkly grin.

Yuuri wraps his hands round Victor’s shoulders and pushes him back gently, moves to stand, and Victor wants to sweep him up. Carry him back to bed - carry him everywhere - but his knee protests when he stands too fast; he sways, turns it into a jaunty little move that presses him and Yuuri together against the countertop.

It’s a testament to Yuuri’s good heart that he merely laughs, tugs Victor close to press their smiles together.

“I love you,” Yuuri says at the same time Victor asks, “Can I touch it?”

Which earns him a baffled little frown, and Yuuri blinks.

“It?”

“You,” Victor corrects himself, then gestures at Yuuri’s abdomen, “the…general vicinity.”

Yuuri snorts, takes hold of Victor’s hand and pulls it under his shirt, holds it against his warm flesh. His eyes glitter, amused, and Victor swipes his thumb across the pudge Yuuri’s acquired since retiring.

He imagines the swell of a future spreading out in front of him. Yuuri beside him, in front, leading him on with a firm hand in his.

Victor lays his free hand on the curve of Yuuri’s neck, over his scent gland. He rumbles, drinks in Yuuri’s responsive hiccuping purr.

He keeps on crying.

 

 - - -   - - -   - - -

 

The rumours start mid-November.

Victor flops, dramatically, across Yuuri’s legs and holds out his phone.

Yuuri accepts it without question, then rolls his eyes when he sees ‘Baby Katsuforov Incoming?!” emblazoned across the screen.

“Victor, you can’t be offended when they’re right,” Yuuri points out.

Victor grins, swipes the screen to show him the next article.

“This one’s my favourite.”

It’s the one with pictures from Chris’ halloween party. With badly drawn mspaint arrows over photos of Yuuri in his costume.

Yuuri sighs, sits back on their bed to read it, one hand resting over the swell of his belly.

Victor stretches out alongside him, rests his head against him and curves one hand over it, stroking absently. It’s almost hypnotic, the motion of his hand over what Yuuri has dubbed The Bump. Victor would object to referring to their unborn child as an object, but as they can’t agree on names, he conceded that Bump was at least better than Yurio’s suggestion of ‘Oh God Why Did You Let Him Impregnate You’.

(This, in turn, was an improvement on his initial reaction of staring, wild-eyed at Yuuri, before kicking Victor in the shin, declaring in terse Russian that he’d never forgive him, and refusing to speak to him for nearly a month. Victor’d quite enjoyed the vacation from Yurio’s increasingly creative insults about his lechery and hairline, but Yuuri’s sad little looks in their direction had been _unbearable_.)

He focuses on The Bump. Content to draw circles over and round it, comforted by the warmth of Yuuri’s skin, how Yuuri’s scent has become subdued, changing from sea-salt almost to sweet tea.

Yuuri’s hand lands on his, and he looks up to find Yuuri smiling to himself.

“You’re humming,” he says, eyes not leaving the phone.

Victor can’t bring himself to deny it and merely shrugs up at him.

“I can stop if you want.”

“No, just,” Yuuri shoots him a look from under his lashes, then peers back at the screen, “you do it a lot when you’re down there.”

Victor hadn’t noticed. He looks back at his hand and, after a moment, presses a kiss to his belly, then climbs back up the bed to sit next to Yuuri; wrapping an arm over his shoulder, and the other round to sit over The Bump.

Yuuri’s halfway through the article, right at the part where they’ve drawn wobbly orange lines over his stomach to prove their point.

“Food Baby or Baby Bump,” he reads aloud.

Victor squints, leans theatrically to look down Yuuri’s body and then noses under his ear.

Yuuri taps the slideshow of grainy photos open.

“I’m beginning to regret letting you talk me into going as the Addamses.”

 _“You_ chose who you wanted to be,” Victor says, and leers a little at him.

Yuuri gives him a flat look back, the tips of his ears going pink. He’d made a divine Morticia.

The outfit, however, hadn’t been entirely forgiving. Yuuri’s not huge but he’s definitely showing, and while Victor had appreciated the very visual reminder that that was his Very Definitely Pregnant Omega, it did somewhat hinder their plans to keep it a private. Chris’ parties usually end up plastered over instagram. And where there’s pictures, there’s gossip; most of the pictures are group shots, and Victor is, unsurprisingly, firmly at Yuuri’s side in all of them.

Victor is willing to concede his expression in most of the images is sheer thirst. He’d got tipsy and spent most of the night sliding fingers under the back of Yuuri’s costume. Ended up pulling him into Christophe’s guest room and begging him to let him eat him out.

(Yuuri came wailing into the pillows, with his skirt hitched up round his thighs. Victor radiating what he called alpha virility - what everyone else seemed to insist was insufferable smugness - for the rest of the evening.)

He’s drawn out of his reverie when Yuuri drops his hand onto Victor’s forearm.

“Do you...mind this?”

Victor makes a questioning sound, and Yuuri elaborates.

“The whole. Media circus thing. I know it’s not exactly new to us, but...some of the things they’re saying…”

And Victor knows exactly what they’re saying. Among the excited fan chattering about Victor and Yuuri potentially procreating, about how happy they seem, how frankly adorable any offspring is going to be (he may have liked that post, half-intentionally adding fuel to the fandom fire), there’s. Less charitable comments.

Ones about responsibility, and Victor's age. Some that are so insulting toward Yuuri’s role in his life that he may or may not have reported as defamatory. (Because if there’s one thing Victor appreciates about the internet, it’s how it enables his none-too-infrequent need to be petty.)

Victor knows. Doesn’t care. Stopped caring a long time ago. But Yuuri sounds worried, a sour note creeping into his smell.

“I mind that it upsets you,” he admits after a moment, fingers spreading reflexively, protectively over The Bump. As an afterthought he adds, “otherwise I just enjoy stringing them along.”

Which he does. Massively.

But if Yuuri doesn’t like it, he’s happy to stop. Happy to put out a statement - happy to run away with him into the woods, far from civilisation and the prying eyes of the internet.

Yuuri twists in his arms, gives him a considering look. His big eyes wine-coloured in the afternoon light, and Victor wants to press his mouth to his, drink him in.

“Okay.” He says.

Then he raises Victor’s phone, and starts to fiddle with it again.

Victor busies himself with rubbing his face into his neck, so light and so in love that he feels simultaneously real and unreal.

There’s the click of a camera shutter, and when he looks up he finds Yuuri looking thoughtfully at the selfie he’s just taken. Victor looks enamoured. He’s also very obviously scenting Yuuri, who is smiling serenely at the camera. It’s a lovely picture. The perfect depiction of an alpha and omega in love.

It’s also cut off just before the obvious bump, leaving the beginnings of a soft swell at the bottom of the frame. Almost accidental, almost artful. The line of Victor’s thumb resting along the curve is just visible.

It’s utter trolling.

“Yuuri,” he mock gasps.

Yuuri smiles, wickedly, and presses the upload button.

“Oh no,” he deadpans, “curse my clumsy fingers.”

Victor kisses a hot line across his jaw, into his mouth. Twists and turns them so he can press Yuuri back into the bedsheets. He loves him so much. Wants to make him smile like that forever, wants to make him scream and shake.

“I want ten,” Victor gasps into his mouth.

“We’ve not even finished one yet,” Yuuri laughs back.

Victor looks at him seriously, says, “I want all the babies.”

And then he shoves Yuuri’s shirt up to his armpits.

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

 

Victor turns forty-five in Hasetsu, blanketed by moonlight and Yuuri clamped to his side, breathing heavy and even. Makkachin’s snoring in between them, fluffy head resting on Yuuri’s hip, a careful, watchful distance from The Bump.

They’re piled into his old room in the inn - the room that never quite stopped being his, even when he and Yuuri moved into their own place near the seafront. Hiroko maintaining it with the same meticulousness she kept Yuuri’s room with; traces of their scents still linger, still make it feel safe. If he shuts his eyes, he can imagine the soft walls of Yuuri’s first nest pressing around them in a welcome circle.

He can’t sleep. Watches the clock tick over into his birthday with a wary eye and one hand pressed to Yuuri’s stomach. Fingers knit close, palm flat.

Victor thinks of the almost feverish articles of his youth. Thinks of the disbelief he feels every time he wakes up to find he’s not weighed down to the bed, that getting up isn’t a chore. Thinks of how there’s a future now, when he imagines it - expanding out, and more than a fuzzy mist over his mind.

He thinks of Yuuri, soft in sleep and drooling against his shoulder; the last hour before bed spent in a grumpy funk, pulling sheets around himself and scrolling on his phone while Victor rearranged the room, restless under his skin with the urgent desire make his omega happy.

(Yuuri had eventually snapped, lifted the covers like a flap and glared until Victor crawled under with him, wrapped around him while Yuuri pressed his face to Victors neck and inhaled deeply. Victor shaking and still, unsure of what to do - what he’d done - purring sympathetically and letting Yuuri scent him without complaint.)

Victor wants, very much, to preserve this moment in time.

Instead he slides away, down, until he’s eye level with The Bump. Makkachin grumbles and shifts. She refuses to be away from Yuuri for longer than five minutes nowadays and Victor fully understands her desire to follow him from room to room, to act like his shadow.

He presses close, nose almost brushing Yuuri’s belly button. His heart is in his throat, words threatening to spill out of his mouth in a torrent; he has no idea what he wants to say, has too much to say. Yuuri’s scent is subtler now, still leaves Victor with the taste of ocean on his tongue; it’s comforting, like the press of Yuuri’s hand in his, like the cool wrap of the ring on his finger

Victor presses a kiss to The Bump, and in lieu of words, he hums.

It’s a shapeless tune, something born of his need to spill out the burning, neon brightness of what he feels. Flat notes rumbling through his throat as he presses his forehead to Yuuri’s skin.

There’s a grumble above him, then fingers running through his hair, tugging and twining. Yuuri shifts slightly, earning a displeased snort from Makkachin, and he removes one hand from Victor to drop onto the poodle’s head. Victor pointedly ignores the pleased look his own dog seems to give him.

“Did I wake you?”

He strokes The Bump, looks up at Yuuri who’s almost ethereal in the darkness. Yuuri shakes his head against his pillow.

“You’re humming again,” his voice is thick with sleep, and Victor’s about to apologise when Yuuri adds, “they like it.”

Victor’s heart drops. His stomach does a strange swooping thing and he spreads his fingers wide, almost reflexively. He’s gaping up at Yuuri when he feels it. The tiny movement beneath his fingertips.

He feels like he’s been punched in the gut.

Yuuri squints attractively down at him, looking torn between amusement and a murderous desire to return to sleep. His hair is falling in chaotic strands across his brow.

Victor just about restrains himself from surging upward, from crashing into him like he was meant for it; he peppers kisses and cooing Russian praise to The Bump, moves up Yuuri’s body and collapses into his chest.

Yuuri holds him close, toys idly with Victor’s hair while Victor tells him _I love you, how is this my life, how did I get this,_ and blinks happy tears onto his bed shirt.

The movement under Victor’s hand stills. He feels like his heart has stopped, been jumped up and down on.

“Yuuri,” he whispers.

Yuuri is halfway back into sleep, eyes shut, and only gives a sleepy “hmm” in reply.

Victor burrows into his collar, lets the smell of him, the steady, warm weight, enclose around him.

“It’s my birthday.” Victor says, almost to himself.

He’s drifting into sleep, when he feels the brush of lips to his temple and hears Yuuri softly say, “happy birthday, Vitya.”

 

Victor dreams of violet nothingness. Of peaceful bliss, wrapped up with Yuuri beside him. Dreams he holds the future, precious, golden between his hands.

He sleeps, and the future kicks beneath his fingertips.

 

\- - -   - - -   - - -

**Author's Note:**

> Me reading ABO: ( ͡° ͜ ʖ ͡°)  
> Me writing ABO: They're basically less pointy cats right?


End file.
